Apostolic Bible Colleges and Accreditation

6 Regional Accreditation Associations

Elk Grove, CA. – June 8, 2010. For centuries Apostolics have established Bible colleges to meet the needs of equipping men and women for ministerial careers. Thousands of ministers have been produced from these schools and have impacted the world. Bible colleges have been one of vital foundations for establishing and maintaining Apostolic distinctives and identity. There has been a move from many Apostolic ministers to pursue degrees from Universities that are fully accredited—meaning that they are regionally accredited. Many of them have shifted to these types of schools because of the quality, government recognition for programs, teaching credentials, financial aid programs, and much more.

While many of the Apostolic Bible colleges are starting to pursue accreditation, so far Apostolic School of Theology (AST) is the only one that has regional accreditation. Regional accreditation is the highest accreditation available in the United States and is the only accreditation that provides complete transferability to any other university or college in the nation. When one hears of any major university such as your state universities, it is speaking of regional accreditation. If a potential student is inquiring whether a school is “accredited”, they should ask, “is the school a regionally accredited school, that is, accredited by one of the six regional accredited associations in America. AST is a school within Hope International University which is accredited through the Western Associations of School and Colleges (WASC). With the move towards accreditation, we will probably see more of our Apostolic colleges join the accreditation process. Urshan Graduate School of Theology (UGST) is another school that is pushing in this direction. They are moving in the direction of regional accreditation, but have only received approval from the Association of Theological Schools (ATS), which is not a regional accrediting agency. There has also been much talk about Gateway College of Evangelism moving in this direction also.

Regional Accreditation

The Regional Accreditation network consists of six agencies – each having jurisdiction over a clearly demarcated region of USA. These boards accord approval to both conventional as well as online schools. It can be stated, without fear of contradiction, that regional boards are older than national accreditation boards and thus more rampantly seen form of accreditation. One of the disadvantages of national accreditation is that while all graduates from regionally accredited programs can transfer to all colleges including nationally accredited colleges, graduates from nationally accredited colleges are not accepted into most regionally accredited colleges.

All regionally accredited schools predictably accept credits and degrees from other regionally accredited schools and generally none of these schools try to belittle or undermine another regionally accredited school. Thus, with a degree from a regionally accredited institution, students can, with less difficulty, transfer from one school to another. The six regional accrediting agencies are: